


Heartbeat

by Nebulad



Series: Whiskey Molotov [8]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:58:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6352534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mentats were mostly for fun— she’d been a government hacker, a law student, and an amateur hacker that managed to avoid the wrath of her former bosses, so it was easy enough for her to talk circles around someone. That didn’t stop her from popping one while they were crouched under an overhang in the rain and looking over at him and grinning. <i>Does this make me sound smart? On a scale of one to ten how willing would you be to take a bullet for me if I asked?</i></p><p>  <i>‘Bout a seven,</i> he always replied.<br/> <br/><i>Give me stronger stuff, then.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heartbeat

Jet was to calm down— that was easy enough to put together. Everything got _real_ slow until she couldn’t understand what Hancock was saying at her— he compensated by grinning so she didn’t tense up again, because she was the tensest person in the whole fucking Commonwealth.

Psycho was to tap into all that pent-up _Audrey,_ so when he was shot down with a dizzy curse and the Raiders started aiming for her legs, she could clear out the floor before Hancock stopped seeing two of everything.

Mentats were mostly for fun— she’d been a government hacker, a law student, and an amateur hacker that managed to avoid the wrath of her former bosses, so it was easy enough for her to talk circles around someone. That didn’t stop her from popping one while they were crouched under an overhang in the rain and looking over at him and grinning. _Does this make me sound smart? On a scale of one to ten how willing would you be to take a bullet for me if I asked?_

‘ _Bout a seven,_ he always replied.

_Give me stronger stuff, then._

She’d never touched drugs before meeting him, but she figured if anyone was gunna get her in the habit, she was glad it’d been him. One night and one too many shots of jet while shivering in an alleyway, and he’d been the one to dig through her bag to find the slightly crushed pack of addictol because her hands were shaking too badly and she couldn’t focus.

They’d stayed off the stuff for a little while after that, only using chems for as long as they were necessary in fights. He kept the jet away from her for longer than that— he denied it, but she wasn’t dumb. He was like a walking drug dispenser, and then suddenly for a month and a half he’s _out of jet._

Nate would be spinning in his eternal cryogenic tomb if he knew what she was up to these days instead of looking for Shaun.

She _was_ technically looking, but… _Nate_ was the good parent. She knew there was a medical condition that sometimes fucked up a mother’s perception of her newborn— it was real hard to remember anything before the Vault sometimes— and she figured she must have had it. There was always something… missing. She loved the kid, but she felt unprepared to care for him— like someone had handed her an exotic pet and not told her what it eats.

Hancock threw a bottlecap at her and she jumped. “Wound up?” he asked, his hand already slipping inside his jacket. Either John Hancock had been a huge fan of pockets, or _her_ John Hancock had done a little sewing.

“Not enough to bother,” she assured him. They were more careful about it now— well, he knew his limits and _she_ had a system: chems for battle and chems when she would otherwise not be able to function at full tilt without help. She stayed away from _chems because you’re guilty_ and _chems because you’re scared._

“C’mere,” he said, gesturing her over to sit next to him on the couch. She’d been fiddling with her Pip-boy when she should have been sleeping, but Hancock never pried. He put his arm around her— he’d been doing that ever since she’d asked him to show her how to take jet— and nudged her side. “Sure you don’t need to relax?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t want to talk about Nate. It seemed strange but it was almost like… the world where she’d been with Nate and had Shaun was an entirely different reality than the one where Hancock’s heartbeat was making her drowsy. Talking about him would be like trying to have a serious discussion about a dream, but a really fucked up dream that didn’t make any contextual sense. _I hacked into the computers of protestors and anti-war demonstrators until I felt too guilty, then I broke away to join them and started law school. I met my husband when he caught me reprogramming Mr. Gutsy bots— he had PTSD so bad he could barely work but they wouldn’t let him retire._

Or telling Nate, _you died and Shaun was kidnapped and I woke up 210 years after it all happened and hooked up with a ghoulified John Hancock who wears the clothes he stole out of the Old State House, and was so relieved when he stabbed the guy trying to extort me that I started getting weepy._

“If you’re gunna fall asleep we could move to the bed you paid for,” Hancock suggested, waking her up from the nap she hadn’t realized she’d slipped into. She grunted in agreement and pulled him over to the dirty mattress in the Dugout Inn room they holed themselves up in at night.

_Nate, I kissed a ghoulified John Hancock after we saved a synth together and his heartbeat is making me sleepy._

**Author's Note:**

> this and one other low quality short coming at u. i went through my drafts because I havent been able to produce content lately and found two things that I didnt strictly hate.
> 
> [My Writing Blog](http://www.nebulaad.tumblr.com) follow for more soft disappointment


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